


Champs-Elysées

by Kaminwh



Category: ONF (Band)
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Character Death, Death, Fantastic, Flowers, Ghosts, Gore, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injury, M/M, Mild Gore, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:42:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26934556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaminwh/pseuds/Kaminwh
Summary: “Are you dead?”The strange man’s eyes were back in the sky.“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
Relationships: Kim Hyojin/Lee Seungjoon | J-Us
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30
Collections: Hallonfween 2020





	Champs-Elysées

**Author's Note:**

> Please read carefully the tags even if it's a minor mention for each one of them!

The first time Seungjun met him, it was a spring night. The dark sky was painted with grey clouds and the moon shone in golden and silver hues. The glade was dotted with many different flowers, but most were stark red poppies. Rays of moonlight cast colorless shadow on the pitiful landscape, stretches of the vast field out of sight as an opaque fog grew out from the forest surrounding them.

_Them._

On the opposite side of the field a young man was sitting on a tree branch, his back resting against the strong wood. He was not seated too high; it was the first branch of what seemed to be a young chestnut tree.

His eyes were whiter than those of normal people. They had a crystalline vibe, as if the fog had entered them to form a jewel. They didn’t reflect the stars or the moon, as if they were stuck in time, between the past and future. His outfit was made of black and white, contrasting shades standing out in the ocean of colours.

His hair was the redness of blood.

“Who are you?” Seungjun asked.

“Hyojin.”

His eyes were lost somewhere in the sky.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking at the stars. I wonder why people say they are beautiful.”

Seungjun looked up in the direction of Hyojin’s stare. The stars were shining as bright as usual, like glitter on immense black silk.

“Aren’t they?”

“They are plain. Always the same, always in the same spot whatever happens. It’s quite sad. But I wouldn’t qualify this as _beautiful_.”

“Then what do you think is beautiful?”

For the first time, the young man stared at Seungjun. He almost didn’t move, but his clear gaze couldn’t be missed in the dark night.

“I don’t know. Maybe the rain, or the way the grass moves in the wind.”

Seungjun frowned, not fully satisfied by his answer.

“Some people say the stars are the representation of people who died. They consider the sky as a graveyard. Finding it beautiful would be despairing.”

Hyojin’s voice was as strong as a late-night whisper, one containing the deadliest secrets, as subtle as a poisonous melody.

“Are you dead?”

The strange man’s eyes were back in the sky.

“Maybe. I don’t remember.”

☾✾☽

The second time, Hyojin had lost his eyes. His face was now drawn by two deep black holes where blood was still flowing. In some places, it seemed like the blood was dripping from his hair. But it was like he was still looking at the sky, as if he still hadn’t found the answer he was looking for.

“What happened to your eyes?”

“I ripped them out.”

“Why?” Seungjun became pale, his empathy making him wince.

“Because I saw something gruesome. It was raw, cruel, and there were screams. The pain helped me deal with them, or I would have lost my ears, too.”

“What was it?”

“Unfair.”

Seungjun’s throat was dry. The slow wind made him shiver a bit more than the first time. It was like each flower, each tree was watching him and waiting for his reaction.

As if this world was over-living.

Seungjun ripped a wide strip of cloth from his shirt, handing it to the red-haired boy above him.

“Here. To hide it.”

Hyojin didn’t hesitate to take the piece of fabric before tying it around his head. The blood helped make it stick to his skin and it coloured the white fabric prettily, as if flowers were slowly blooming onto it.

“Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t have hurt yourself like that.” Seungjun didn’t know why he was lecturing him. But he couldn’t help to pity the other man, maybe out of incomprehension.

“It’s okay, I don’t care.”

“But you can’t look at the stars anymore.”

“Why would that matter? I told you that I thought they were scams.”

“Then why would you watch them so much?”

For the first time, Hyojin didn’t reply immediately. The silence was cryptic, highlighting the organic and greasy atmosphere, allowing the loud world that was suffocating Seungjun to laugh at him.

His fingertips were frozen.

“Because I’m stuck here. Trying to understand their beauty was the only entertaining thing that I had left.”

“What are you going to do now?” Seungjun’s voice was sadder than he expected.

“It’s okay. I remember each one of them perfectly after all this time. Nothing will change.”

“Why are you stuck here? Why don’t you leave?”

“Because death is below.”

“Below?”

“Yes.”

Seungjun looked at his feet, crushing the grass and some flowers he didn’t know the names of. Amusingly, a poppy had managed to avoid its demise and was standing proudly between his feet.

He crushed it. Maybe by ego.

☾✾☽

The third time, Hyojin was the first one to speak. It was the first time he asked a question.

“Why are you crying?”

Seungjun touched his cheek. He was.

“I don’t remember.” His voice was shaking and everything suddenly felt blurry. “Why am I here?” the boy asked with much distress.

“I don’t know. Why would you come?”

“I enjoy talking to you, I guess.” He wasn’t convinced by his own answer.

This time, the moon was missing. Perhaps it had been tired of watching the endless world.

“Me? I’m not a great companion though. I can’t move or see.”

“Do you remember my face?”

“I do.”

“Then it’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“Why does your face matter so much?”

Seungjun thought he knew the answer. But when he tried to explain, no words could leave his mouth.

“I see,” simply concluded Hyojin, accentuating Seungjun’s discomfort.

“How long have you been here?” Seungjun knew the question was a bit aggressive, maybe it broke the neutral mood that had grown between them from their past encounters. Or maybe he was overthinking. Silly.

“I don’t remember,” Hyojin answered in the same intonation as always. It was similar to the waves in winter.

“You seem to have a bad memory,” noticed Seungjun.

“So you do,” he simply stated, not a bit of humour or emotion showing yet.

☾✾☽

The fourth time Seungjun came, it was raining. The young man had seated himself under Hyojin’s branch, listening to the heavy rain in an almost total darkness.

“Aren’t you sad that you are not able to see the rain anymore?”

“It’s okay, I can still listen to it.”

Seungjun certainly didn’t find it _beautiful_.

“Do you mind my presence?”

Seungjun almost missed the other’s answer.

“It’s nice.”

He didn’t really know why but this made him happy.

“What is this place?”

“A glade. Don’t you remember how you came here?”

“I don’t.”

He never remembered how he got there. Maybe he should have worried when he forgot the why, too.

“I want you to come with me.”

“I don’t need your pity.”

“It’s not pity, it’s…” Seungjun carefully chose his words, “Friendship.”

“I don’t want us to be friends.”

“Why?” Seungjun couldn’t hide how offended he was, even as he looked up at the tree branch supporting the boy.

“Because you don’t remember me.”

When he looked at the field again, he swore he had seen something move through the dense fog. He didn’t get scared though, maybe because Hyojin was there.

“I have never met you before.”

Hyojin didn’t reply and Seungjun felt sick. Like something was wrong, and the feeling was powerful enough to hurt him physically.

Something moved.

Closer.

☾✾☽

The next time, they weren’t alone.

“You should go,” Hyojin warned, but Seungjun decided to stay a bit longer.

He only noticed when he looked up at the field again.

Creatures.

Their heads slightly inclined, the size of a human, an odd colour between cream and blue, black holes for eyes and mouth, as if they were silently screaming out of pain. The fog was growing, creeping closer to the centre of the field, bathing some of them, their face then becoming the only visible part.

And they were all looking at him. Coming closer. Slowly. Very slowly.

“What are those?” Seungjun asked in a shaken voice, unable to control the panic that threatened to immerse him.

“They come, sometimes.” The calm of Hyojin’s voice added to Seungjun’s horror.

“What do they want?”

“I think they are jealous of you.”

“Why? I did nothing!”

Seungjun couldn’t stop glaring at the forms with the fear that if he stopped, they would appear in front of him.

“You still look like a human.”

Seungjun’s breath left his lungs as he realised what Hyojin was saying.

“They are humans?” the boy murmured, not fully understanding what he was implying.

“Are, were, whatever you want. Isn’t that what a ghost story usually is anyway?”

“They don’t look like ghosts,” Seungjun retorted, not noticing how childish his reflexion was.

But this time Seungjun didn’t notice how the world was jeering at him, judging his every word and movement, pointing and laughing at his absurdity and ridiculousness.

“Are they going to kill me?”

And Hyojin laughed.

☾✾☽

On another day, the sky was red, a colour oddly similar to Hyojin’s hair and the ocean of poppies surrounding them.

“Is the world ending?”

“Why are you saying that?”

Seungjun had forgotten Hyojin’s blindness for a moment.

“The sky is red, it looks like blood. Like if someone had hurt it and it’s dying.”

“Does red always represent dying things?”

Seungjun took his time to answer, knowing well enough that the colour was over-present in the little glade.

“Am I dead?” the blond whispered out of nowhere, the wind making the poppies shift in harmony in front of him.

“You are.”

“Since when?” Seungjun looked up at the other boy, feeling nothing.

Nothing.

“The day I lost my eyes. It was you.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Sense?” Seungjun could swear he had seen Hyojin smile.

“Stop laughing at me. It’s not funny, nothing is funny. I want to go home.”

“But do you really?”

Seungjun’s emptiness was suddenly filled with disgust, a strong nausea almost making him puke on the spot.

The world smelled like blood, putrefaction, death.

His own blood.

His own smell.

His own death.

“I was there,” whispered Hyojin.

His voice’s melody increased the dizziness, the overwhelming sensations of a world that didn’t want him anymore.

Some flashes, memories maybe, of pain, despair, pain and a red happiness.

It was raw, rusty, old.

“Who are you?” Seungjun didn’t even know if he was standing or sitting, he couldn’t feel anything but the red.

“Hyojin,” he heard, somewhere, from a distance he couldn’t define.

This time, the pain wasn’t physical, it was inside of him, almost like a melancholic sorrow. But it was stronger, much stronger.

The eyes were of a calm brown, reminding him of maple syrup, the kind they used to pour on the pancakes they cooked. The thin smile was like a cup of coffee bitter in the early morning, and the hand was warm.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. I’m sorry, Seungjun.” Hyojin’s voice was like a heavy rain falling on a poppy field.

“You were there,” Seungjun managed to say.

The screams, his, but harmonizing in agony with another one.

“You watched him kill me. You promised me you would protect me.”

The red of anger, rage and revolt.

“I’m sorry my love, I’m so sorry.”

For the first time, Hyojin’s voice was stained with emotion. The ones of hatred and desperation.

“You knew he would hurt me again; you knew it, you saw it and you did nothing.”

“I know.”

“You killed me.”

The silence embraced the truth.

“The first time we met here, what had happened?”

“He had almost killed you.”

The short moment Seungjun could feel again, he looked up at Hyojin.

“I want to climb that tree.”

“You can’t.”

Their eyes met. The sky was reflecting in Hyojin’s amber eyes, adding Hell’s tint to it, the reds of passion, death, regrets and sorrow.

The red.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my entry for #Hallonfween ! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I had fun writing it :) If you have any question about the plot dont hesitate because I didn't explain everything~
> 
> Thank you to my dear Abi (@onfults) for correcting it!


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